January 9, 2004, Hour One: Mars Camera / Biological Electronics

Science Friday > Archives > 2004 > January > January 9, 2004: Hour One: Mars Camera / Biological Electronics

Though it seems like every new computer packs more power into a smaller space than the one before, there are those who say that trend can't last -- not without something new. In this hour of Science Friday, we'll talk about efforts to use the tools and tricks of biology to build electronic components, from wires made of proteins built by viruses to tiny transistors based on strands of DNA.

Plus, chances are good you've seen the latest color pictures from the planet Mars. We'll talk with one of the scientists behind the lens of the Mars Exploration Rover's 'pan-cam.'

Color high-resolution image taken by the 'pan-cam'
on the Mars Exploration Rover 'Spirit.' (NASA/JPL/Cornell)

Call in with your questions and comments at 1-800-989-8255 (2-3 Eastern), and discuss science on our Science Friday Blog (

Guests:
Jim Bell
Leader, Panoramic Camera Team
Mars Exploration Rover
Associate Professor, Department of Astronomy
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York

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Angela Belcher
John Chipman Associate Professor of Materials Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Uri Sivan
Professor, Physics
Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
Haifa, Israel

Erik Winfree
Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Computation and Neural Systems
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Pasedena, California

This segment produced by Charles Bergquist

Archived Audio:
not yet available for this segment
listen in RealAudio format -Mars
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listen in RealAudio format - biology
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streaming audio help from NPR

Books/Articles Discussed:
'DNA-Templated Carbon Nanotube Field-Effect Transistor'. Science Nov 21 2003: 1380-1382.

'Virus-Based Toolkit for the Directed Synthesis of Magnetic and Semiconducting Nanowires.' Science Jan 9 2004: 213-217.

(find books discussed on previous broadcasts)